Dementors Are Not Dogs
by InvisibleJediMaster
Summary: If he survived the next five minutes, this was going on the list of things he definitely DID NOT want to wake up to. It would, in fact, usurp the number one spot from 'In bed with Voldemort' because even that situation was a lot more survivable that the one he now found himself in. Harry was stuck in his bed with his wand out of reach and three Dementors in the room.


Disclaimer: Harry Potter is not mine, I just play with it on occasion.

* * *

If he survived the next five minutes, this was definitely going on the list of things he definitely DID NOT want to wake up to. It would, in fact, usurp the number one spot from 'In bed with Voldemort naked' because even that situation, while excessively horrifying in a way that called for permanent Obliviation, was a lot more survivable that the one he suddenly found himself in. Harry was stuck in his bed with his wand out of reach and three Dementors in the room. One was hovering between him and the nightstand on which the wand lay, and a scabby desiccated hand was reaching towards his throat as it bent down towards him. He jerked out of the way of the nearest Dementor just in time to succumb to the nightmare visions _and now his mother was screaming_

 _Voldemort's laughter, green light_

 _Quirrel-the basilisk-Kill the Spare-Sirius-Dumbledore's black hand-Dumbledore's fall—_

With a gasp, Harry jerked his mind back to awareness. Everything was cold, and the middle Dementor had reached out while he was distracted and was gripping his neck. He scrabbled at the hand with stiff fingers as his heart tried to beat its way out through his ribcage. His vision was going black at the edges, and the long bony digits were as solid as steel as the Dementor bent down, its hooded head getting inexorably closer to its target, _it's meal_.

Harry was almost glad the lighting in his room was so dim, its only source being the thin moon and distant stars enchanted across his ceiling, because at least his last sight wouldn't be what lay beneath the monster's hood. Unwilling, his body seized up completely and then went bonelessly limp as his vision blacked out. That didn't stop the soul-deep shiver of revulsion as the hole of the Dementor's maw closed softly around his mouth, the touch so incredibly wrong in a way that transcended words. And then Harry, now floating in his mind and distantly conscious, got the terrible pleasure of feeling the Dementor's strongest magic.

It was like a thick fog, forcing its way into his mouth. It tasted of cold, and age, and sharpness, and then his mouth was numb and he could only feel the pressure of it flowing in. His throat, though, that burned as the soul-reaping power flowed down through his chest and into his stomach. From there, where it gathered around his core, it branched out into thousands of tiny threads that worked their way all through his veins, twisting around every thread of magic flowing through his body before pulling them all loose. Every drop of magic he contained snapped back, rebounding into his core, and the violating magic gathered around it, sealing it in. Reaching through his mouth, down his throat, to his center of power and self, the Dementor _pulled._

Well, it tried to. It felt like trying to pull Walburga Black's painting off the wall, with Harry as the wall. Even as the rope of magic reaching down his throat thickened with the Dementor's efforts, Harry's magic and soul seemed to be just as stuck into place as the portrait had been. The Dementor may have loosened it from the rest of his body, but it wasn't budging an inch out of place. Unable to recognize either its failure to Kiss Harry or the stalemate as Harry's soul just refused to cooperate with its soul-sucking efforts, the Dementor just kept trying.

Seeing that his theoretically assured demise was, in truth, going absolutely nowhere, Harry poked his magic into motion. A thin string shot out from the ball it had been bound up in, breaking through the cage, and wormed all the way up to his mouth. The warmth of his own magic brought back Harry's sense of taste just in time for the thread to make a thin, bright noose right at the edge of the Dementor's mouth and snap shut, cutting off the flow of magic. It's mouth left his suddenly and the hooded head pulled away. The hand slackened, and Harry collapsed back onto the bed against the wall while the Dementor straightened. Back in control of his own body, Harry took in a deep gasp of air that would have tasted like life itself if it weren't for the cut-off Dementor magic still mostly filling his mouth and throat. A lot of gasping and coughing followed as he tried to clear out the taste of grave dust from his mouth. The thick, misty-feeling power eventually dispersed through his body and faded, leaving him free to breathe with the aftertaste of Dementor.

It was a testament to both Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans and the culinary talents of Hermione Granger-who couldn't cook a meal to save her life-that he had tasted worse.

Before he could recover, the second Dementor had caught hold of him to give it a go.

* * *

After failing to cooperate with the second Dementor as well, Harry recovered in time to escape the grasp of the third by leaping past the retreating second to snatch his wand from the bedside table and finally cast the Patronus. The first two retreated from the room in the face of Prongs while the third, which had lost its chance to have a go at his soul, floated up into a corner of the ceiling as far away from Prongs as it could get but refused to leave the room. Prongs and Harry both stared at it as the thing curled in on itself and the cold retreated from the room. When he went to leave the room, Harry saw the pair of Dementors floating only a short distance away and staring in his direction. Still in shock, he stared at them for nearly two minutes before deciding that leaving his house would be a good idea and directed Prongs ahead of him to clear a path.

Pursued by three Dementors, Harry fled from his home. He locked the building down as soon as they were all out the door and then he apparated.

Several hours and one sunrise later, Harry was explaining the incident to a gaping Hermione, Ginny, and Fleur when the three Dementors tracked him down once more. With four Patroni standing guard, they kept their distance but refused to actually leave. When two more showed up, Harry and Hermione decided to go to the Ministry while Fleur and Ginny went to inform the family about the latest Inexplicable Harry Incident.

The Ministry's solution, when the Dementors followed him _there_ as well, was to send some Aurors to escort Harry to Azkaban with the hope that the wraith-like prison guards would follow him and then stay where they were supposed to be, all the while Hermione would be reporting to the Unspeakables with a Penseive-viewable copy of Harry's memory in hand.

* * *

Going to Azkaban ended up being a rather predictably bad idea as the Dementors swarmed him as soon as he set foot within the repaired fortress. They came in such numbers and close quarters that they overwhelmed the human guards and Kissed him several more times to little effect after he sent Prongs to save the human guards that tried to barricade themselves into the kitchens..

After being force-fed Dementor magic several times, Harry was absolutely certain he would never get that horrible taste out of his mouth even if he ate treacle tart for a week straight. Even worse, when he tried to leave, he would be honor bound to go straight back because _all the bloody Dementors_ would leave to pursue him and wreak havoc wherever he went.

For the next week, as Hermione and the Unspeakables failed to uncover any helpful information, Harry spent most of his time either on the roof or playing poker with the prisoners, accompanied by at least a dozen Dementors wherever he went. At the end of that week, they attacked him again, and this time he didn't really resist the hand that closed around his neck and forced his face to tilt up. Still sleepy and dazed from the inevitable nightmares, he didn't notice that this time was different until he had a small rock of all things put in his mouth. He didn't even have time to wonder what the hell was going on this time before the chance to spit the rock out was lost to him by yet another Dementor mouth closing over his own.

When the familiar taste of their magic flooded his mouth, Harry gagged as he was forced to swallow the rock, and a great deal of magic with it. A moment later he was released and trying to catch his breath from the floor. The rock, if that's even what that was, felt like a tiny glacier as it burrowed into his magic through the Dementor patches left on his core by all the failed Kiss attempts and the power left behind after each one. As he lay twitching on the ground, Harry was torn between very much wanting to vomit, the inability to actually do so, and the knowledge that it would be too late to stop what was happening even if he did. Surrounded by cold and floating cloaked figures, he passed to the relative mental safety of unconsciousness.

* * *

Harry woke up warm with Hermione's blurry face looking down at his. As soon as his eyes blinked open, she captured him in a hug. Her joyous screams of "You're awake! You're finally awake!" brought a small wave of redheads plus two silverettes into the room.

A series of hugs and reassuring hand grips later, Harry was informed he'd been unconscious for three whole days and that everyone was terrified the Dementors had finally killed him because no one could wake him up. Hermione questioned him about what he could remember, and he thoroughly vexed her when he informed the frizzy-haired witch that they'd forced him to eat a weird rock and he'd promptly passed out. The battery of tests that followed this information was inconclusive, and the hospital staff would be forced to release him soon because they could find absolutely nothing wrong with him beyond the large patches of Dementor magic on his core that wouldn't go away but weren't actively harming him either.

It was a few hours later that it happened. Harry was listening to Hermione argue with Bill and Fleur about what could have possibly made the Dementors act in such a strange manner; Gabrielle was holding his left hand loosely while she listened to her sister and brother-on-law; Ron and Ginny were off to the side discussing the completely shocking win of the Chudley Cannons; and Arthur was reading the newspaper while he waited for Molly and the twins to return with food for everyone. Harry was only half paying attention to Hermione's current theory when he let his thoughts drift to Dumbledore and what the old Headmaster might have said. He was certain that he'd have a theory regarding the Dementors' inability to remove his soul. Just as Harry decided to go to Hogwarts when he was freed from St. Mungo's in order to consult Dumbledore's portrait, Gabrielle's hand suddenly tightened around his with a faint gasp. Harry glanced at her face, only to see her wide-eyed with shock. About to question her, Harry heard a voice he thought he'd never hear again outside the Headmaster's office, and he stiffened in surprise.

"Why hello, dear boy, how are you?"

Harry's eyes found the ghost of Albus Dumbledore himself standing at the foot of the bed just as all conversation in the room abruptly seized. Apparently the others could see him too. That made him feel a little better, though he was no less confused.

"You seem to be in quite an unusual predicament, young man. But tell me, how did you happen to swallow the Resurrection Stone?"

The newspaper slipped from Arthur Weasley's slack fingers. Harry's face paled in horror while everyone else in the room looked back and forth between the pair.

"I sw-swallowed the R-Resurrection Stone? _That's_ what the Dementors did?!"

"Dementors you say?"

"The Dementors have been trying to Kiss Harry for over a week now. From what Harry's said, no matter how hard they try, they can't get his soul loose," Hermione explained for Dumbledore.

"At least a dozen of them tried while I was in Azkaban, and they followed me everywhere. But then one came while I was asleep. Before I could react, it put a rock in my mouth and then… and then it gave me the Dementor's Kiss and the rock…. It was so cold." Harry shivered as a hand rubbed at his neck. He could still feel it going down. "But why would they…. How did they even find it? I dropped it in the Forbidden Forest, so it would never be found."

"Perhaps, my boy, they are connected to the Hallows. If they were able to find the Stone, lost as it was, they must have some reason for then bringing it to you. You have used all three, have you not?"

* * *

When Harry was finally released from St. Mungo's and allowed to return home, he was really glad Hermione came with him, because he found the soulless body of a Death Eater that looked only vaguely familiar and another Dementor. Certain there hadn't been any Dementors left in the house last time he'd been there, and that he'd locked up his home wards, he started scanning immediately for how the sort-of-dead man and the Dementor had gotten into his house. Had this been the same person who let the trio of Dementors in last time for an assassination attempt that would likely have been successful on anyone except Harry himself?

A few minutes into examining his wards, the wizard was made aware that he'd gained immunity to the effect of a Dementor's presence when the one he'd been ignoring grabbed his arm.

Hermione, who'd gone back outside immediately to inform the Aurors of the victim, came back in to find Harry and the Dementor standing, and hovering, in the entrance hall staring at each other. "Harry, what?"

"I don't know, Hermione," he replied without looking at her. The Dementor didn't even twitch. "Did you call the Aurors for the Death Eater?"

"Yes, they'll get here in a few minutes, they're getting a Healer from St. Mungo's first."

He looked at her then. "Could you wait outside to let them in the wards?"

"Of course. Are you…?" Not entirely sure what to say, she waved vaguely at the Dementor, which had reached out to redirect Harry's attention back to itself. When Harry grabbed its hand in his own, she shivered, unable to imagine touching one of the creatures.

"I'll handle this, whatever it is now. You help the Aurors, alright?" And Harry dragged the creature off to the closest room, the sitting room, and out of sight.

Confident Hermione could handle things, he released the Dementor he'd dragged by the hand into the sitting room and stared at it. It hovered in front of him and reached out with the same hand he'd been holding to grasp him gently around the neck, like all of the others he'd encountered up close. A few long minutes passed as nothing further happened. Eventually the Dementor seemed to lose patience and, with its free hand, took Harry's own hand and guided it up to grasp the throat of the Dementor in the same way.

Harry couldn't help it; his eye started twitching as he wondered why, in Merlin's name, the Dementors had to act so incredibly weird around him and him alone.

Its head drew close and Harry's vision went predictably black as the hole of a mouth closed over his in the beginning of another Kiss. But instead of the typical flow of Dementor magic he'd come rather unfortunately to expect, it seemed to gather at his lips hesitantly, as if waiting for some signal, before only a thin tendril shot forward carefully to go all the way down to his magical core. Then it prodded at the large patch of Dementor magic that had slowly assimilated into his own after each failed Kiss attempt. The thin string of magic latched on and drew back, drawing a small stream of his own power back with it, all the way back up to his mouth. When it slowly sucked the string into its own mouth, but no further, Harry stilled in bewildered surprise.

He could sense the magic of the Dementor from within it now, as it formed a sort of tunnel down deeper into its being. It was almost as if the creature was trying to teach him to mimic itself. Why would a Dementor teach him this? The gentle pulling sensation grabbed his attention, and he sent his magic flowing, with a healthy dose of apprehension, down into the Dementor. He found a shining light cradled in a bowl of very dense Dementor magic. He found a soul. Just as he had been guided down, he found the string of his magic being guided to wrap around and then encase that bright little ball. For another long minute, after the help withdrew, nothing happened. He couldn't move, his magic wouldn't release the soul this Dementor had clearly consumed, and the Dementor didn't move either. So he tried to pull his magic back, but stopped, unwilling, when he started pulling the soul up too.

Harry really didn't want to proceed, but this was clearly exactly what the Dementor wanted because he could feel its magic smooth out around his, almost as if it were relaxing so the soul could be drawn up with greater ease. Now feeling rather horrified at himself, Harry pulled the soul up and out and drew it into his own mouth. Feeling a deep chill suddenly appear deep at the bottom of his own magic, he lost control of the string pulling the soul as the Dementor's hand withdrew, barely noticed. For a very brief moment Harry felt the second soul beside his own, and then it slid past, drawn like a magnet down into the coldness that he knew was the Resurrection Stone before vanishing into it.

His vision finally cleared and he stared at the Dementor, not really seeing it, before realizing he was still holding it around the neck. He let go as if he'd been burned and backed up from the Dementor quickly, unable to believe he'd just been taught by a Dementor how to give the Dementor's Kiss, how to take a soul. He ran around the Dementor and out of the room. It followed him all the way out of the house and then flew off unprompted.

Hermione was waiting outside and became quite concerned when she saw the state of shock that had been inflicted on her oldest friend. It took her almost ten minutes of convincing, after dragging Harry back into his own kitchen and providing a cup of tea, to get him to explain. The explanation was short, and so unexpected it took a moment for the horror to fully register.

"The Dementor taught you how to take a soul!?"

They really needed something stronger than tea to deal with this one…

* * *

Please review, let me know what you think. This one just wouldn't leave me alone.

What do you think will happen next?


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